30 of Pat McGrath’s Most Iconic Runway Make-up Seems to be

“We’re going to have some enjoyable.” These had been the primary phrases Pat McGrath … excuse me Dame Pat McGrath, ever stated to me. For 9 years, 18 seasons, I lined magnificence backstage for Attract at Style Week in New York, Milan, and Paris. However that single second — crammed backstage at Gucci, reeling from a red-eye flight, excessive on espresso photographs and the Elnett within the air — is probably the second I recall most vividly. My 23-year-old self was each totally thrilled and fully terrified.

Pat McGrath is a legend, and her work extends effectively past creating make-up seems to be for runway exhibits. However that work backstage actually units her other than her contemporaries. For one, it is insanely prolific. She does extra exhibits in a single season than some make-up artists do in a decade, a feat that requires dozens and dozens of trunks and a moped to whiz her via the streets of Milan and Paris. Pat doesn’t have time for bumper-to-bumper visitors when she has to get to Margiela. 

It’s not solely the sheer quantity of runway exhibits Pat does that make her style’s magnificence queen, although. It’s additionally the truth that her creations have helped drive almost each main make-up development we have skilled over the previous 20 years. The return of blue mascara again in 2012? That was Pat at Stella McCartney. Rhinestone-studded eye make-up? Pat helped usher that in together with her spectacular face jewellery at Givenchy in 2014. Sublimely highlighted pores and skin? Effectively, Pat’s been doing that her whole profession. The method was her well-kept secret (belief me, we begged her to inform us at each present) till the launch of her model and, quickly after, a dual-ended highlighter stick.

Not having a time off through the entirety of “style month” was taxing for anybody alongside for the wild trip. However Pat was proper all these years in the past once we first met. Amidst all of the exhaustion and chaos, we did have loads of enjoyable. You by no means knew whom Pat would introduce you to whereas making an attempt to interview her a couple of make-up look. I chatted eyeliner with Donatella Versace. I laughed alongside Gwendoline Christie as she and Pat recalled their membership days in London. I’m fairly positive I’ve a voice memo the place Paul McCartney pops into an interview. When Pat’s backstage she’s by no means trying to be the focal point — in actual fact, she’s often making an attempt to evade it. However everybody who’s anybody desires to cease and chat together with her and, in the event that they’re actually fortunate — like Tilda Swinton was backstage at Lanvin one season— even hop into her chair for a fast touch-up.

Pat McGrath is happiest when she will get to execute a actual search for a present. With a wink and a cheeky smile, she would at all times give us backstage editors a heads up when she knew a significant make-up second was arising on the schedule, whether or not it was lashes comprised of fake feathers or Swarovski-studded lips. These are a few of my favourite backstage recollections: geeking out with Pat over our mutual love of elaborate make-up, generally sticking round till seconds earlier than the present in hopes she’d expose an additional tidbit a couple of look — like how she made the eyebrows appear to be brocade material at Dior, or how she glued dozens of false lashes collectively for these Bambi eyes at Louis Vuitton.

To actually give Pat McGrath’s contribution to style the justice it deserves, you’d must filter out a ground of a museum. This assortment of 30 photos is only a small instance of what she’s created for the runways over three many years. They’re the seems to be which have sparked traits, influenced the market, or just turned the wonder world on its head for one motive or one other. They usually’re the seems to be that she’s constructed her namesake model round. So sit again, scroll via, and put together to grasp precisely why McGrath has earned the suitable to be referred to as probably the most influential make-up artist on this planet.

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